Ramki Krishnan from Chennai emerged the winner of the Indian Crossword League (IXL) 2015 final held in Bangalore on Friday. The event was organised by Patna-based civil society initiative Extra C.

The finalists had been selected on the basis of 10 online rounds with top scorers qualifying for the final played offline. The 16 finalists were selected on the basis of the final leaderboard formed after 10 weekly online rounds.

The contest began with a written round before six onstage finalists were selected. Besides Ramki, the others who moved on to the last stage were Narayan Mandyam (Navi Mumbai), Dr S. Venkatesh (New Delhi), Vinoo Sanjay (Mumbai), Mohsin Ahmed (Bangalore) and Venkatraghvan S (Mumbai).

Some of the top contestants who had qualified for the grand finale could not be part of the climax due to prior engagements. The two offshore direct entrants to the finals - the winners of the first-ever offshore rounds in Toronto (Canada) and New Jersey (US) - too could not attend the event owing to prior commitments.

Mohan Verghese Chunkath, additional chief secretary of Tamil Nadu, the chief guest and also a participant, said: "It was wonderful to be a part of the Indian Crossword League and I am looking forward to be a part of IXL over the years."

Bihar cadre IAS officer Vivek Kumar Singh (IAS), the chief mentor of IXL, said: "Crosswords in India have taken an altogether new shape over the last few years and contests like the Indian Crossword League has helped this cause."

Among the top six, Ramki works in the IT industry, Vinoo Sanjay is into infrastructure development, Dr S Venkatesh is the director of the National Council for Disease Control, New Delhi, Venkatraghvan S is an investment banker and is the director of IDFC Capital Markets, Mohsin Ahmed is a scientist at Isro and Narayan Mandyam works in the IT sector.

The finalists also included Shashwat Sinai Salgaocar, a second-year aerospace engineering student from IIT-Madras, and Aniruddha, a student of NIT-Tiruchirapalli.

Colonel (retd) Deepak Gopinath, the winner of the inaugural event in 2013, was the chief arbiter of the competition.

Bengal Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi had launched IXL 2015 in Calcutta on September 27 this year. The preliminary rounds ended on December 6.

Into its third year, IXL has been acknowledged as a one-of-its-kind event by the Limca Book of Records.